


You blew your cover for what?!

by la_choo (melonbutterfly)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Marriage, Romance, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-29
Updated: 2008-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/la_choo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco gets almost killed, Snape is pissed, and somehow in this whole mess a rather shocking secret is revealed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You blew your cover for what?!

They were late, the two most important spies of the Order of the Phoenix.

The meeting had been scheduled for nine o'clock sharp, and it was nearly eleven now. But they hadn't heard of any unscheduled late meeting with the Dark Lord, any incident or unexpected order that needed to be attended to immediately. If something like that had occurred, at least one of them would have thought of sending the Order a note, and they had their ways to make sure those messages arrived unnoticed and immediately.

To sum up, they simply had no idea what to do without those two important members, couldn't really start the meeting and most members had already left as they lived undercover and couldn't afford to be detected. In fact, only Molly, Ron, Fred and George Weasley, Lupin, Sirius, Harry, Hermione and Dumbledore were still left waiting, and they all (out of Dumbledore, of course) lived at Grimmauld's place for the time of the holidays. Ginny did, too, but she was currently visiting a friend, pouting that she still wasn't allowed inside the Order while Ron was.

It was the beginning of Christmas Holidays of Harry's seventh year. In two days was Christmas, and the Weasleys had decided to move in to Grimmauld Place for these two weeks as it was easier than to visit all the time.

To say that Sirius was delighted was an understatement. He wasn't that bored anymore as he had taken Hermione's advice and started reading books and soon even moved to writing them himself – only the books he read really weren't what Hermione had had in mind. His romance – or rather, smut – novels, published under the pseudonym Lynx Rho, had earned him many fans, but he still enjoyed nothing more than visitors.

But currently, he wasn't enjoying the fact that many people were sitting in his kitchen. No, he was as worried as they were – even though he'd never let anyone know. After all, he hated Severus Snape. He really did; but still, that didn't mean he wished him dead. At least not that much.

So, he was as relieved as everyone else when they heard the noise of someone apparating in the hallway, and then two persons entered the kitchen.

"You look like shit.", he said without even thinking at first sight of Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy. But he was right; Draco's clothes were dirty, crumpled and torn a little, and he was bleeding – or injured in another way, at least his left upper arm was bandaged with something that looked like a t-shirt. Snape just looked dead tired – and angry.

"You would too, Black, if you had been chased through a forest by crazy Death Eaters.", Snape hissed. Then he turned to Draco.

"Now, _explain_. What the hell was that?"

Draco looked, despite his ruffled appearance, perfectly composed. He raised an eyebrow at his professor's question and said calmly: "There isn't much to explain."

"Now, now, Severus, calm down.", Dumbledore stood up. He motioned for Sirius to go and inform the other members that everything was more or less fine with the two spies. Sirius nodded sadly and left. He would have loved to hear the story, but an order was an order. After he had closed the door behind him, Dumbledore looked at Snape. "Now, Severus, what happened?"

Snape took a deep breath, shot a glare at Draco and then started to tell the story.

"As you all know, the Lord called us to him for today afternoon. We expected a new task, as he said he had plans for us. And we were right; he had plans, though not for us but for Draco, and Pansy Parkinson."

"Parkinson?" Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

"I know her parents aren't members of the Inner Circle, but they were offered the opportunity if they agreed to certain… terms."

"What terms?"

"The Lord wanted Pansy and Draco to marry and produce an heir."

Not a few gasps were heard, and Molly Weasley exclaimed loudly: "They're merely seventeen!"

Snape nodded. "Pansy's parents agreed, though. So today, he told Draco to get married and Pansy pregnant during the Christmas Holidays. For that purposed, he wanted me to brew a certain potion that would ensure that Pansy would become pregnant."

"That fast?", Dumbledore said, brows furrowed. "He must be planning something. Do you know anything about it?"

Snape shook is head. "He told no one. And I didn't have the chance to ask him, as Draco so kindly refused."

It was silent in the kitchen.

"He… refused?", Remus repeated, looking at Draco, who made a point of looking unconcerned.

"He said No. The Lord got furious, made him pay, and decided he didn't need Draco as a servant anymore. He almost didn't survive."

Now everyone stared at Draco, who pretended he didn't notice.

"Draco, you didn't have to refuse like that. You should have accepted the task and we would have figured something out. You should know that."

"You don't understand." Draco turned his head away to look at the wall, frowning slightly.

"Gods, Draco! So you didn't want to marry Parkinson. It's not such a big deal, you would have gotten divorced after the war, and I know for a fact that Parkinson is in love with someone else, so she wouldn't have had a problem with it. I didn't know you were stupid enough to get yourself killed for something as trivial as that!" Snape snarled.

"You don't understand! I can't marry Parkinson! I am already married to someone else!" Draco hissed, glaring at his professor.

It was deathly silent. Ron was staring at his grudgingly accepted ally with his eyes bulging out, Hermione had covered her mouth with one hand, as had Molly Weasley.

"But Draco! You're only seventeen!" she said, worry evident in her eyes.

"Yeah, well, maybe my seventeenth birthday was my last. We couldn't have waited for long if we didn't want to marry as corpses, could we? And the ''til death do us apart'-part would have taken care of that." Draco said, turning his head again to look at the wall.

Molly had tears in her eyes. "Oh, Draco!", she gathered the young man in her arms. "Poor boy!"

At any other day, Ron and the twins would have laughed themselves silly at the expression on Draco's face, but not today. To find out that someone their age was married already was just a little surprising, to say the least.

"Now Molly, calm down, please." Dumbledore was still as close to frowning as anyone had ever seen him. "I must confess I had no idea. May I ask to whom you are married to, and since when? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

Draco flattened his clothes and shortly closed his eyes. "We didn't think it was important. After all, who would have expected that it would be important for the Dark Lord whether I'm married or not?"

Dumbledore sighed and nodded. "It certainly was unexpected. I know I wouldn't have thought it important – at least not in that way."

Draco nodded, a serious expression on his face. "The same with us."

"Mr. Malfoy?" Dumbledore asked after a pause. Draco kept silent, looking again at the wall. After another pause, Dumbledore sighed. "Mr. Malfoy, it may be of importance. I'm sure-" But he was interrupted by Harry, who got up and moved to stand by Draco.

"To me." He said in a soft voice, showing his hand where he'd slipped the ring that had been hanging on a chain around his neck before on. "He's married to me."

If the silence had been deathly before, this one was so thick you could have sliced it with a knife and offered it on plates.

Until Ron fainted. That seemed to break the spell; his brothers looked down on him and sniggered, Harry stared with big eyes at his best friend, and Draco and Dumbledore were clearly amused.

Hermione was still in shock, though, opening and closing her mouth like a fish and staring at the "new" couple, and Snape and Remus weren't doing much better.

And Molly Weasley broke into tears, hugging them both close and saying "Poor boys!" over and over again, mixed with "I'm so happy for you!" here and there. Snape was the one who saved them, if only unintentionally.

"Draco!", he hissed sharply. "Do you have any idea what you did? How did that happen?"

Draco blinked after Molly let him go, flattened his clothes again and said with a raised eyebrow: "I'm sure you know the process. We bought rings, went to the next-"

"Draco Malfoy, I suggest you answer my question right now." Snape didn't look very reasonable anymore, and Draco turned defiant. "What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you how we fell in love and decided it were better for everyone not to know? Do you want to know how we decided after his last encounter with the Lord and me becoming a Death Eater that we better marry now, before it's too late? Or do you-" He was stopped by Harry, who calmly took his hand and threw him a glance.

Draco closed his mouth and turned to stare at the wall again, but closed his fingers around Harry's.

Dumbledore looked at their joined hands and the twinkle returned to his eyes. "I can't say I'm not surprised, but it's a good surprise, even though the reason why you hurried isn't. And while it's unfortunate that you can't continue to spy for us, Draco, it's no drama. If you hadn't been made Death Eater so suddenly you'd never have joined his ranks, after all, and I must say that I'm glad that you're out of danger now."

Harry nodded, clearly feeling the same way, and Draco did, too.

"So, the only thing left for me to say is: congratulations." Dumbledore smiled at them, and Draco grinned shortly while Harry blushed.

"Yeah, congratulations, you two! Even though I'm sad I wasn't invited, but we definitely have to celebrate this!" Molly had dried her tears, but hugged them again.

"Nobody was invited", Harry mumbled.

"That's what Vegas is for, after all." Draco explained.

He didn't expect Hermione to find her voice again at that exact moment.

"Vegas?", she screeched. "Harry James Potter, I can't believe you! You went to LAS VEGAS?"

Harry blinked and nodded nervously. "Uhm, yeah?"

Hermione gasped for breath. "Vegas!"

"Uhm…"

"That's the dirtiest, most criminal city you could have gone to! Are you aware what could have happened to you? And-"

"Granger, if you'd kindly shut up." Draco snapped, and surprisingly, Hermione closed her mouth. She seemed clueless of how to deal with Draco after this new revelation. She couldn't very much ignore him any more now. "Now, don't you think he's able to defend himself in a village full of stupid muggles and drunken wizards?"

Hermione frowned, but couldn't help but nod. "I guess. Sorry."

Harry looked to the ground. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. But at first, I couldn't, and then it was too late, and I just…"

"It's okay, Harry. I always knew it would happen someday, I just didn't expect it so soon and so fast."

Harry nodded and smiled weakly.

Then Hermione broke into tears and did a very good impression of Molly earlier, hugging them both close and sobbing "You're married! Oh my god!"

That was when Sirius returned. "Who's married? What did I miss?"

"Harry and Draco.", Remus replied. He had recovered from the shock and really wanted to see how his best friend would react.

Sirius blinked. "Oh. You told them?"

"You knew?" Remus stared at his friend in shock.

"Yeah, well… where do you think I got my inspiration from?"

Remus turned slightly green.

"You wrote your books about Harry and Draco?" Hermione asked with big eyes, letting go of the two. Maybe she'd have a look at them again…

Sirius gasped. "Of course not! I just took them as… inspiration. I wrote about the hate-turns-to-love-thing in "Reversed Universe", and the off-to-Vegas-to-marry-thing in "Tourniquet"."

Harry blushed again when Hermione seemed to be disappointed.

"Anyway, what I want to know is: how did you marry? Muggle-way or wizard-way?"

"Both.", Draco replied.

"Don't they need witnesses?"

"Not in Vegas. But naturally, we had to delay the real ceremonies 'til after the war, so you can still be his maid."

Hermione blushed.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, we're only married on paper, and you know Draco, he needs to make a big event out of everything…"

"I don't!" Draco protested, but Harry ignored him.

"…so you merely missed us signing our names, nothing grand."

"Hey!" Draco protested again. "'Nothing grand'? You are aware that I dedicated the rest of my life and all of my properties to you, are you? And even if my father decides to cut me out of his will I'll still be insanely rich, and you know it. Just think of my properties in France, that-"

Harry shut him up with a quick kiss, causing the twins to whistle. "I know that. We had to list all our properties, remember?"

Draco huffed, and Ron made a gagging noise from the floor.

"I feel kind of overwhelmed." Hermione confessed. "One second you're still merely accepting or rather ignoring each other, and the next second you're an old married couple. How long have you been together, anyways?"

Harry looked at Draco. He had never been good with dates, but Draco memorized everything – how and why, he had no idea. But it was useful sometimes.

"One year, three months, one week, two days and thirteen hours."

Hermione blinked. "Ten in the morning? You skipped classes?"

Harry and Ron shared a look and quickly looked away, trying very hard not to giggle. Fred and George weren't put under those restraints, though, and laughed openly.

"Honestly, Hermione, they tell you that they've been in a relationship for more than a year and all you think about is whether they skipped classes a year ago or not?"

"It is important, you know." Hermione informed them arrogantly.

"We didn't skip anything, for your information." Draco said, just as arrogant as Hermione. "If you must know, we were dutifully sitting in History of Magic."

"I wonder whether Professor Binns will retire if he finds out that his lesson encourages students to start a relationship during it." Ron mused, a hopeful expression on his face. He was still lying on the floor.

Hermione was still trying to get over the fact that they had apparently not paid attention during class, and that she hadn't noticed a thing.

"How _did_ you get together?" She asked with her 'I'm thinking' expression on her face.

"He wrote a note." Draco explained after a glance at Harry, who blushed but nodded, allowing him to tell them. "'Do you want to be my boyfriend? Yes, No, Maybe.'"

The whole kitchen broke into laughter. Draco grinned, and Harry mock-pouted and pushed him to sit down on a chair. He sat down on his left side, pushed down his robe and started to unwind the improvised bandages. The others sat down as well, and Mrs. Weasley made some tea. Dumbledore excused himself and said he had been away from the school for way too long and left, Snape on his trails, but Draco knew he wasn't finished with him yet.

With them sitting down the whole atmosphere changed. Hermione had gotten Harry the first aid kit and sat down besides him, watching as he carefully pulled away the improvisation of a bandage. When the last traces of cloth fell away, both gasped.

The sleeve of Draco's button-down had been burned away, black at the ends, and the flesh of his arm was red and raw. It had dried already, the cloth connected to the sealing wound, and they knew when they'd pull it away, they'd tear it open again. There were slight cracks in the dried yellow-white substance, and they could see soft red meat in between them. It was not a nice sight, and imagining the pain it must be inflicting and would until it was healed, Harry paled.

In any other situation, he would have hit Draco and berated him for not saying anything earlier, but now he feared if he'd open his mouth something entirely different would come out. When he himself was wounded he wasn't affected in the slightest, but Draco was a totally different case.

"Water", Hermione suddenly said.

"What?" Harry tried to look away from the wound, knowing if he'd continue looking and feeling he'd start to cry and he _really_ didn't want to get all emotional on Draco, especially not in public.

"We put a wet towel or something on it and it will soften everything up, so we can pull the cloth away without doing too much damage or hurt."

Harry nodded, and Hermione jumped up and hurried to get a bowl of water and a towel. She drowned it, folded it until it vaguely fitted the size of the wound and pressed it on the wound. A simple sticking spell made sure it would stay there no matter how Draco moved, and Harry was relieved that it would cool the hurt at the same time.

And then he hit Draco in the side. "Say something next time!", he ordered, ignoring the faint grins from the other occupants of the room. Draco nodded, knowing better than to protest, and ignored the quiet sniggers from Fred and George.

"He's domesticated.", they whispered in stage whisper. "Our very own domesticated Slytherin." One of them cooed; he didn't bother trying to tell them apart. They sobered up pretty fast when he glared at them and put on straight faces, but only because Molly was glaring as them as well, he was sure of that. Damn twins.

He hadn't meant to make Harry worry, though, and so he silently took his hand under the table. He knew Harry would understand; they'd lived with silent language for more than half a year now and were pretty efficient at it, even though they rarely actually got to touch in public.

What he didn't expect, though, was Harry to lean over, wrap his arms around his waist and bury his face on his shoulder. But he should have, he thought, as they were 'out in the open' now and Harry really had hated all the secrecy – and he usually was a little clingy when one of them had been in danger. So he ignored those twins who were doing a rather silly expression of two lovesick fangirls and put his good arm around his husband, allowing himself to close his eyes. He was rather tired.

"I think you should go to bed", Molly said. Draco opened his eyes again, blinked and slowly focused on her. Her soft, loving gaze made him uncomfortable.

"Yeah.", Harry answered for him, voice muffled. But neither of them moved.

Draco closed his eyes again.

He felt good. No need to hide anymore, and even though he wasn't really safe, he was safe in this company, in this house, and he wouldn't have to go back to the Dark Lord anymore. He could protect Harry openly now.

Harry sighed, and Draco knew he was falling asleep. They both were.


End file.
